I know I shouldn't, but I can't help chuckling at this Guardian article about how Tories are coming under attack online. ''Conservatives are losing out on social media because supporters feel unable to share their views without attracting abuse, the Conservatives' new party chairman has said.'' It goes on, Tory chairman Brendan Lewis said that ''If you look at what happens on social media, if somebody on the right or the centre puts out a message, the attack from the hard left is sometimes unbelievably abusive and vitriolic.'' If you ask me, they deserve every word of that vitriol for the suffering they have caused and the harm they have done to the country.

Of course, this is partly due to the anonymising effect of the internet: you can say things online which you would never say to a person's face, so people feel more free to give vent to their frustrations. Yet I also feel that we are becoming angrier and angrier, whipped up into a fury by utter travesties like Trump and Brexit. Such things fly in the face of every liberal, tolerant value we have, but we also feel powerless to stop them. The web gives us easy, anonymous access to those who support such insults to humanity, so I suppose more and more of us are losing our restraint. I'm as guilty of it as anyone, but I can't help worrying where all this rage and hate is taking us.

Posted 24/02/2018 at 10:30:00 (GMT)

Comments

No comments yet

Due to a spam infestation, commenting has been temporarily disabled.
Contact me if you have something intersting/useful to add, and I may add you comment to my entry (giving credit, of course).